The Madam

by Jaime Raven

  She was clearly too afraid and too traumatised to do anything other than step back and let me enter.

  ‘Are you alone in the house?’ I said.

  She nodded.

  I could smell the shower gel in her hair and the fear emanating from her pores.

  I closed the door behind me and said, ‘I don’t want to hurt you, Mrs Ferris. But believe me I will if you don’t answer my questions. Your late husband’s friends on the force are about to arrest me. So I’m scared and desperate, and that makes me highly dangerous.’

  She licked her lips and found her voice.

  ‘They’re saying on the news that you’re wanted in connection with a murder.’

  ‘I know what they’re saying, Mrs Ferris. But I didn’t do it. It’s a stitch-up. I don’t expect you to believe me, but it’s the truth.’

  Her expression hardened suddenly, and her eyes seemed to turn in on themselves. I watched her closely, fearful that she might scream or even attack me. Instead she made a tight slit of her mouth and breathed out a pitiful sigh.

  I got the impression that something she had been bottling up for a long time was about to be released. It caused my heart to do a little somersault.

  ‘The thing is I do believe you,’ she said after a long pause.

  Her words jolted me because they were so unexpected, and I felt my eyebrows spike.

  ‘Are you being honest?’ I said.

  She nodded again and her eyes slid away from me as though out of embarrassment.

  ‘But why?’ I said. ‘I don’t understand.’

  She fixed her gaze on the wall to her left and said, ‘This is the second time they’ve done it to you and I know I can’t just stand by and say nothing.’

  It was like being hit full-on by a shockwave. Every nerve in my body became taut and I had to blink away a rush of dizziness.

  ‘Come into the kitchen,’ Mrs Ferris said, facing me again. ‘I think you need a cup of tea.’

  I breathed deeply as I followed her along the corridor, desperately trying to take the tremble from my lips.

  The kitchen was small and bland, with old units and cluttered work surfaces. Mrs Ferris gestured for me to sit at a glass-topped table before she started making the tea.

  With her back to me, she said, ‘Why are the police saying you killed the woman?’

  ‘Because I knew her,’ I said. ‘And she sent me a text asking me to go to her house last night. Only when I got there she was dead and the police arrived a few minutes later. So I panicked and ran.’

  She turned around to face me and I noticed for the first time that she looked pale and tired. Red veins spoiled the whites of her eyes.

  ‘You need to tell me everything, Mrs Ferris. How you know I’m innocent and why you’ve been tending my son’s grave since your husband died.’

  But she wasn’t going to be hurried. The kettle boiled and she poured the teas.

  She put the mugs on the table and sat opposite me. Her eyes glistened with tears that were trying to come out.

  I waited with mounting frustration for her to speak, but I decided not to push her in case she had second thoughts.

  After what seemed like an eternity, she said, ‘Neil was a good husband and father. He loved me and I loved him. But four years ago he suddenly changed. He became distant and depressed. I didn’t know what was wrong with him until after he committed suicide and I found the note.’

  ‘But the papers and the police said he didn’t leave a note.’

  ‘Well, he did, along with a DVD recording of himself. I just didn’t tell anyone because I was too ashamed of what he revealed.’

  ‘What did he reveal, Mrs Ferris?’ I asked gently.

  She ran a tongue over her teeth and looked down at her hands resting on the table.

  ‘He told me that he’d done a very bad thing and that he’d been struggling to live with the guilt,’ she said. ‘That was why he was depressed.’

  ‘Did it have anything to do with me?’ I asked.

  She nodded. ‘He knew all along that you didn’t kill Rufus Benedict. On the DVD he confessed to helping another officer manipulate the evidence to make sure you were convicted.’

  I felt a sudden rage. ‘I knew the police must have been involved. Bastards.’

  ‘I’m afraid my husband lost his way, Miss Wells. He had a gambling problem, you see. Built up heavy debts. So when a colleague encouraged him to sell his soul to Joe Strickland he did. Strickland paid money into a bank account that I didn’t even know existed.’

  She paused for a few moments to compose herself. Beads of sweat had popped out on her forehead and her hands were shaking.

  ‘It continued to play on Neil’s mind and his depression got progressively worse,’ she said. ‘Then a year ago he read in the papers that your son had died. And as you probably know he went to the funeral. I told him it wasn’t a good idea. He found it very upsetting, and it pushed him over the edge. That’s when he decided to take his own life.’

  ‘So he jumped in front of a train because he felt guilty about what he did to me?’ I said.

  ‘That was partly it. But it wasn’t the only reason.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘On the DVD he said he also couldn’t stop thinking about the girl. It was torturing him.’

  ‘What girl?’

  ‘The one he killed,’ she said, almost in a whisper. ‘Her name was Karina Gorski, and she was Polish.’

  Detective Neil Ferris had killed Karina Gorski!

  That was what his widow had just said and it left me completely shell-shocked. I couldn’t speak for several seconds. The silence in the kitchen became so intense that I could hear the hum of the freezer, the tick of the boiler.

  Mrs Ferris picked up her mug and sipped at her tea. Her face was the colour of chalk and her pupils were wildly dilated.

  ‘The police told me Karina simply disappeared,’ I said. ‘They said she probably went back to Poland.’

  Mrs Ferris put the mug down and shook her head. ‘She didn’t just disappear,’ she said, suddenly finding renewed strength. ‘My husband murdered her. They then hid her body and pretended it never happened.’

  I was confused as well as shocked. This was a hard thing to process.

  ‘And you found this out only after he died?’ I said.

  She nodded. ‘From the DVD. Neil wanted me to make it public. I know I should have, but I told myself I couldn’t live with the shame. I also wanted to spare our daughters. I didn’t want them to know what their father had done.’

  ‘So you kept it to yourself?’

  ‘I’m afraid I did. That’s why I felt I had to put flowers on your son’s grave, Miss Wells. You see, if I’d let the police see the DVD you would have been released from prison a year ago. But for purely selfish reasons I held it back, and the flowers went some way towards assuaging my guilt.’

  The anger that coursed through me caused my chest to contract like a fist.

  ‘I can’t believe you did that,’ I said, my voice tremulous and vengeful. ‘That was despicable.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘But I couldn’t bear the thought that Neil would be labelled a murderer. It would have destroyed all our lives.’

  ‘What about my life?’ I said. ‘I spent a year in prison when I didn’t have to.’

  She started to cry then, black rivulets of mascara staining her cheeks.

  I was furious, fit to explode. I had to slow down my breathing to get air into my lungs.

  ‘For what it’s worth it’s made my life a misery,’ she sobbed. ‘I kept telling myself I should take the disc to the police, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. After I saw you at the cemetery yesterday I felt terrible. I suspected it was you who phoned the office and I knew you’d track me down. I’ve been agonising over what to tell you. Then your face appeared on the news this morning, and I had a feeling it was happening all over again.’

  I squeezed my hands into fists, so hard I was digging small crescents in th
e palms with my fingernails.

  ‘So tell me why your husband killed Karina,’ I said. ‘And what part he played in bringing me down.’

  She drew herself upright, wiped her eyes with a tissue she fished from her pocket.

  ‘I think it’d be better if you watch the DVD,’ she said. ‘It’s upstairs. I’ll go and fetch it.’

  She invited me into the living room, which was austere and impersonal. The furnishings were hard edged and colourless, the walls devoid of pictures.

  The television rested on an ugly glass stand above a DVD recorder and a Sky box.

  She switched it on and slipped the disc into the player. I sat at one end of a big brown leather sofa and she sat at the other.

  Before she pressed play on the remote she looked at me with her red, puffy eyes.

  ‘I hope that after you’ve seen it you can find it in your heart to forgive me,’ she said. ‘What I did was cruel, and I want you to know that I’m prepared to see that justice is finally done. I’ll talk to the police, tell them everything.’

  ‘It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?’ I said.

  ‘I’m sure it will help in the present circumstances, Miss Wells. At least it should make the police think twice before charging you with that woman’s murder.’

  Her words cut through the rage and produced a glimmer of optimism. Had my luck changed? Was the widow woman going to get me out of the mess I was in?

  I pushed the thought to one side because I didn’t want to build my hopes up.

  ‘Let’s get to it,’ I said.

  I stared at the screen as she pressed play. The opening shot was of an empty chair in this very room.

  ‘He recorded it while I was at work,’ she explained.

  After about ten seconds Neil Ferris stepped into shot and sat in the chair, but I almost didn’t recognise him.

  He was a shadow of the man he was four years ago. His face was gaunt and hollowed out, his eyes huge and haunted. Hard creases framed his mouth and when he spoke his voice cracked hoarsely.

  ‘If you’re watching this recording, my love, then I’m already dead. I’ve been thinking of taking my own life for months. Seeing that poor woman standing next to her son’s grave made me realise that I couldn’t go on any longer.

  ‘The feelings of guilt have overwhelmed me. Lizzie Wells did not kill Rufus Benedict and yet I helped falsify the evidence to get her sent to prison. I thought I could live with it because she was just a nobody, a prostitute. And I thought that if we charged her with manslaughter instead of murder it would be less bad. But I was wrong.’

  I glanced at Mrs Ferris. Her eyes were glued to the screen, and her body was stiff with tension. I wondered how many times she had tortured herself by watching this, and why she hadn’t destroyed it.

  ‘But framing Lizzie Wells wasn’t the worst thing I did three years ago,’ Ferris said. ‘The worst thing I did was kill a young woman named Karina Gorski. It wasn’t meant to happen. We were only supposed to extract some information from her. Except I lost my temper because she wouldn’t open up. I punched her so hard in the face that she fell and cracked her head on a slab of concrete.’

  He stopped talking and closed his eyes. His jaw went tight, and the tendons in his neck stood out.

  As he tried to compose himself I felt the blood flowing into my face. It was so hard to take in. I had just been declared innocent by a dead man. If his wife hadn’t suppressed his confession the world would have known about it a year ago.

  Ferris opened his eyes and continued speaking.

  ‘You need to know how it all came about, Pam. So I’m now going to tell you. And then I want you to take the disc to the Chief Superintendent so that Lizzie Wells can be freed from prison. I know it’s going to be hard for you and the girls to live with the knowledge of what I’ve done, but it’s necessary. I desperately want to right this wrong.’

  In a faltering voice he laid it all out like a defendant giving evidence at his own trial. He said he was one of two corrupt officers based in Southampton who were on Joe Strickland’s payroll. They helped ensure the smooth running of his illegal empire by giving him advance warning of raids and turning a blind eye to his activities.

  But things got messy just over four years ago when Rufus Benedict got involved with Karina Gorski, who was an escort. He became one of her most regular clients and one night she let slip that she was also Joe Strickland’s favourite tart. She often slept overnight at Strickland’s city centre flat and he took her away for the occasional weekend.

  This gave Benedict an idea. For years he’d been trying to write a story for his paper exposing Strickland’s operations. Getting the information had always proved impossible, though.

  But somehow he managed to persuade Karina to help him by installing a hidden video camera and two electronic bugging devices in the flat, which Strickland used for private meetings away from his office.

  The surveillance equipment was there for a month and during that time picked up a wealth of incriminating material – and not just against Strickland. Ferris and his accomplice, as well as corrupt local government officials and drug dealers, often appeared on the recordings.

  The video footage and the tapes included dodgy deals being made, conversations about drug and people trafficking, as well as graphic sequences showing Strickland having sex with Karina.

  ‘Benedict was planning to put it all into his story,’ Ferris said. ‘But he didn’t count on Karina getting greedy. She knew the recordings were dynamite and realised that Strickland would pay a lot of money to get his hands on them.

  ‘So she showed him some of the video footage and tried to blackmail him. She wanted half a million pounds and said if he didn’t pay up it’d be sent to the police.

  ‘Strickland told us about it and wanted to send his henchmen Sean Delaney and Ron Parks to sort her out and get the tapes. But we offered to go and see her first, thinking we’d have more success getting the material from her and finding out exactly what Benedict had.’

  Ferris went on to say that they picked Karina up from outside a pub and took her to one of Strickland’s empty building sites. There she stood her ground and refused to back down, even when they threatened to fit her brother up for a crime and get her sent back to Poland.

  ‘She just kept telling us that if she didn’t get the money we’d all be exposed,’ Ferris said. ‘She tried to convince us that she had all the material and was looking after it for Benedict. Of course, we didn’t believe her. She was so full of herself and I don’t think she realised how serious it was.

  ‘That was when I lost my rag and punched her. She hit the concrete slab and died instantly. It was a freak fucking accident, but we knew we had to cover it up. So we put her body in the car and took it into the New Forest. We buried her in a shallow grave in woods behind The Crown pub at Ashurst.’

  Ferris said they then carried out a search of Karina’s home, telling her brother they were looking for clues as to her whereabouts. During the search they found a box under the bed. It contained video and audio recordings from Strickland’s flat.

  Their attention then shifted to Benedict and Strickland told them he was going to arrange for the reporter to be dealt with. But there were two problems. Firstly they didn’t know if Benedict had his own copies of the tapes and secondly Strickland didn’t want to come under suspicion himself because everyone knew that Benedict was working on his story.

  So they put Benedict under surveillance, followed his every move for about a week after Karina vanished and finally got lucky when he led them to a safety deposit box at a local bank. They used an official search warrant to get a look inside and found a cache of tapes which they removed.

  Strickland then decided it was safe to kill Benedict to get him off his back and stop him from making too much noise over Karina’s disappearance. So he started making arrangements.

  ‘He asked us to make sure we got involved in the murder investigation,’ Ferris went on. ‘It wasn’t diffi
cult and so we were able to interfere with the hotel security footage and make sure that Lizzie Wells carried the can. Once she was put away everything got back to normal.’

  My mind was reeling. I was astonished at the amount of detail Ferris had put into his confession. It was clear that he’d thought it through carefully and planned exactly what he was going to say.

  But there was one thing he didn’t reveal until almost the very end, just before he again told his wife that he was sorry and said goodbye to her.

  It was the name of the other bent copper who had been involved from the start, the person in fact who had encouraged him to sign up with Strickland in the first place.

  When I heard the name I felt a surge of angst. It was another thing I knew I was going to have trouble coming to terms with.

  I turned to Mrs Ferris and said, ‘I want you to make a phone call for me. I want you to call DCI Ash at the central police station. Ask him to come here straight away because you have something important to say relating to Lizzie Wells. And tell him to bring DS McGrath with him. It’s important they both come. If Ash asks you what it’s about just tell him you can’t say over the phone.’

  When she looked at me her eyes were curiously vacant, and it seemed like she had lapsed into a state of shock.

  ‘I know the number of the station by heart,’ she said. ‘I’ll get the phone.’

  26

  While we waited for the two detectives to turn up, Mrs Ferris went upstairs to get dressed.

  I was pacing the living room when she came back down. She’d put on a black corduroy skirt and thin blue sweater that clung to her fragile frame.

  ‘I’ve got to call the office,’ she said. ‘Tell them I won’t be coming in.’

  I watched her make the call and wondered if she fully realised the implications of what she had done by letting me view her husband’s confession. Her life was about to crash into the buffers and there was even a chance she would go to prison for withholding information from the police.

  After she’d spoken to her boss, she went to the front window and pulled back the curtains. The morning light seemed to reshape her face, and she suddenly looked much older.